Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/49

Rh the other. "Ramage," the young man suddenly broke out, "are you keeping something back? Isn't she safe?"

The good Doctor's small, neat face seemed to grow more genially globular. "The dear lady is convinced, you mean, that her very last hour is at hand?"

"So much so," Tony replied, "that if she got you and Nurse away, if she made me kneel down by her bed and take her two hands in mine, what do you suppose it was to say to me?"

Doctor Ramage beamed. "Why, of course, that she's going to perish in her flower. I've been through it so often!" he said to Mrs. Beever.

"Before, but not after," that lady lucidly rejoined. "She has had her chance of perishing, but now it's too late."

"Doctor," said Tony Bream, "is my wife going to die?"

His friend hesitated a moment. "When a lady's only symptom of that tendency is the charming volubility with which she dilates upon it, that's very well as far as it goes. But it's not quite enough."